Naans & Curries, An Ethnic Indian Restaurant

Yesterday we drove to the Lindora area of Santa Ana, an affluent suburb of San José, to try the breakfast buffet at Naans & Curries. This restaurant features gourmet ethnic Indian cuisine and the breakfast buffet is a recent addition to their menu.

The restaurant is located in the Momentum plaza, which itself is a really interesting place. There appear to be twelve restaurants to choose from - Aji Limon (Peruvian), Arden Beer Garden, Artisano Deli, Bambai (Mongolian), Door 74 (a club I think), Kotoy (Japanese), La Fabbrica (pizza), La Ostra (seafood and grill), La Paleteria (ice cream), Los Pitaz (Mediterranean), Lucha Libra (Mexican) and Naans & Curries. I can see us coming back here to try some other cuisines. Around the plaza are some large metal horse statues.

Naans & Curries has a large covered outdoor eating area and this is where the buffet foods were set up. They start service at 7:00 am but on this day they were a bit delayed due to unforeseen circumstances, so I would suggest arriving around 8:00 am. Excellent service and wait staff. They explained all the foods to us, what they were made of and so on. The owner introduced himself to us and apologized for the delay. We didn’t mind waiting a bit and ordered coffee for Lance and a mora lassi for me. Lassi is a drink made with yogurt, water, spices and the mora is a type of berry grown here. It was icy cold and delicious.

The food - all I can say is it was wonderful. There were so many choices available, starting with a fruit, cereal, salad and cheese (including paneer) table. They also had an omelette station and a parantha station - I think these were paranthas - very thin, rolled with a filling of cauliflower (or maybe potatoes). Wonderful, flavourful soups. A table of large tureens filled with different curries. We ended up so full that we couldn’t try a lot of the items that were available. Still, we were brought a dessert that we were told we had to try, “just have a bite”. A kind of pancake with chocolate poured on top and cream. Needless to say, we didn’t eat the rest of the day.

Food from India has to be one of the world’s great cuisines - the subtle flavours are incredible. There is such a wide variety of local and traditional ways of preparing food. What we had today was mostly from south India, which we had never been able to try before. Coming from Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, we were used to Punjabi recipes. This area is one of the world’s largest South Asian enclaves and most are Punjabi Sikhs (Wikipedia).

The price per person for the buffet and unlimited smoothies is 7,500 CRC, not including the mandatory taxes and service charge. Including both of these, the final total for two people was 18,500 CRC (about 32.00 USD). We added a tip.

We’ll definitely be returning. 

A part of the Momentum plaza:

My lassi drink and the table centerpiece:


Two kinds of rolls to eat with the soup, three kinds of sauces, a chickpea filled pepper:


What I think is a parantha, with two sauces:


Three horses running:


Look at the saddle - all fashioned with metal, even the reins: